Broadway at Night [pre-canon]

Sometimes, Olive imagines that she’s on Broadway, solemn in the glare of the lights—a breathless audience waiting for her first notes to soar over the stage. So, when all the customers are gone, and she’s cleaning the tables, she sings. Tonight, it’s Chicago:

I’m gonna rouge my knees
               And roll my stockings down

She dusts off the last corner booth with a flourish, spinning her way towards stardom. She imagines what it would be like to really be on the stage, but she knows she could never give up her job, at the Pie Hole—

Of course, she’d give up every dream of Broadway to have the Piemaker. Ned: perfect in almost every way, in spite of his distance, his emotional detachment, his inability—or unwillingness—to look love in the eyes.

Olive often wonders about Ned’s tragic past, fabricating the sob stories he would tell her, if she asked, and the sad music that would swell behind his words.

No, I’m no one’s wife,
               But oh, I love my life

In all her dreams, the stories end, and there’s a soft silence before he sweeps her off her feet as the lights go out. The official happy ending. Broadway at night…

She gives the counter a final polish, and turns to put out the lights.

            And all
                that
                  jazz.